My doctor is looking into "soft bipolar" as a reason
for my continual "poop out" on other antidepressants. My questions is how
does one know whether or not you have complex PTSD or soft bipolar?

Thank you.

Dear Cherie --
That's a fair question, as there's quite a bit of overlap (phases of agitation,
severe sleep disturbance, inability to concentrate, irritability; plus
depression, low energy, avoiding things like social contact in some
circumstances). But bipolar should be more "ups and downs" where PTSD is more
fundamentally a problem with anxiety. Trick is to learn more about each of these
and keep trying them on to see what fits better as you learn more. It would be
more urgent to figure this out if the treatments weren't so similar. In some
respects that main reason to figure out which one it is, is to make sure it's
not bipolar disorder before you put antidepressants in there, as the risk of a
bad reaction to them is higher if that's the case. But you've already been
there. The psychotherapy approaches are somewhat different, if you have a good
therapist who knows enough to know PTSD-specific and/or bipolar-specific
therapies, of which there are several each. Good luck figuring that out.